


Touch Starved

by StarScreamLoki



Category: Loki - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Loki (Marvel) Angst, Loki (Marvel) Has Issues, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-24 04:13:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16632704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarScreamLoki/pseuds/StarScreamLoki
Summary: Faith had me crossing paths with the Norse God of Mischief, Loki. Here I thought I had been dealt a hand of cards where I met someone who’s needs I could never satisfy, a sexual predator as many described him, but it couldn’t have been farther from the truth…





	Touch Starved

Every time I reached for him, my hand hovering mere inches from his face to cherish his cheek, he grabbed my wrist and pulled my hand away. Every time I grabbed his hand he seemed to stiffen, quickly wiggling his fingers from my grasp. And never once had I had the opportunity to steal a kiss from him for he always recoiled, keeping me at arms-length.

Loki, the God of Mischief, the Trickster, and as many described him; a sexual predator, yet he always shrank away whenever I tried to touch him.

I didn't understand why, and with the little knowledge I had I thought that he was asexual, but even asexual people wouldn't shy so much from a touch as he did. I could not touch him, reach him, but he remained in my company, claiming he liked be around me.

Yet I didn’t understand why I never get to feel his skin under my fingertips.

Was it my fault? Something I had said or done?

He assured me that wasn't the case, but he didn't want to tell what it was either. His walls were up so high I couldn't possibly climb them, let alone break them, and I knew I had to be nothing but patient.

But the insecurity nagged at me. What was it? Why wouldn’t he want to be touched? Had others been wrong in his assessment of him? Had I been wrong? Whenever I asked him he always waved the question away, and when I pressed a little it was met by sheer anger. He didn’t want to open up, he didn’t want to tell.

Sometimes we fought because he didn't want to be touched and in return he never touched me - something I yearned for. No, not even in a sexual way but just a touch, a cherish, his fingers brushing my cheek. A hug to make me feel safe or less sad. Something. Anything!

It took me a while to realize what was the actual reason he wouldn't let me touch him.

I don't remember what had transpired before the event, what had triggered it, but one evening we were lying in bed, faces to each other but a distance between our bodies as always, the sheets barely covering his naked form - something what he didn't appear to be afraid of; showing skin.

Anyway, the magic that surrounded him seemed to falter for a bit and his smooth and pale skin changed. His flesh was littered with scar upon scar, some small and surficial, other long and deep. At some points I wondered where one scar ended and the next began, the intricate pattern adorning his flesh making it look as if a toddler had just scratched a pencil across paper trying to make a drawing but lacking the skills.

It was then that I understood why he abhorred touch, or at least, it explained why he shied away - it hurted him in multiple ways.

Instinctively I reached out for him, wanting to touch the scars, but again he caught my wrist as he had done so many other times. “Don’t!” he whispered softly.

“Loki, I-” His eyes found mine, riveting me to the spot and my hand relaxed in his grip.

“Do they hurt?” I asked with a small voice.

He let go of my wrist and my hand fell back to the mattress, just mere inches away from him. Away from the person I could not touch - didn’t want to be touched.

“No.”

“I don’t understand. I thought you had healing magic.”

“Yes, I have. But healing magic doesn’t take away the wound, it only speeds up a healing-process, leaving behind scars just as a wound would when healed at a normal pace.”

I nodded. Couldn’t he just take away the scars? Or did he just simply choose not to do so?

“Do you trust me?” I asked, my heart pounding in my chest.

He was silent for a long period, just staring at me, his eyes boring into mine and I could feel my heartbeat getting louder by the second.

It was ear-deafening.

When he finally spoke, when he finally answered, it felt like my eardrums shattered with the sharp sound of his voice. “No.”

I should have known. He didn’t trust me and I should have known. However, maybe I understood it too. One who wears so many scars, has been in so much physical pain would find it hard to trust anyone. Yet I think he lied. Because here we lay in my bed - which was nowadays more  _ our _ bed instead of  _ my _ bed - and he trusted me enough to close his eyes in my presence and sleep, always a safe distance between us. Strange was though, that even when he slept and I touched him, wanted to caress his skin, he even shied away too. Sometimes he woke, sometimes he didn’t, and when he didn’t he became aggressive, trying to fight me off. In the end I had forfeited my attempts.

He trusted me enough to cook for him. He trusted me enough to laugh with me - something he did scarcely. But oh when he did... Whenever he  _ truly _ laughed his smile was the brightest thing in my day, could pull me from the darkest of moods and make me forget how different and sometimes difficult our relationship was.

From the corner of my eye I saw him studying me, not knowing what was going on in my head, and slowly my eyes found their way back to his, just staring at him with a small smile on my lips. A small smile indeed, but laced with all the warmth and love I could offer in that moment.

“What is it that frightens you so much and makes you shy away from my touch?” I asked him softly.

For the briefest of moments I saw confusion spread across his face; it had probably not been the question he had expected. He had just confessed he didn’t trust me, that should have evoked something else from me than calmness and understanding.

Should it have?

The confusion I saw changed to something much deeper. A pained expression laced with even more feelings. Fear. Sadness. Grief. Guilt. Remorse…

It was all there. Not on his face, never on his face. I had come to learn that the God of Mischief only showed his superficial emotions on his face but his true emotions could be found in his eyes.

Just like this time.

I saw his walls crack a little in front of my eyes and it felt as if got caught in his inner war - a battle he seemed to be fighting with himself as he bit his lip and his eyes seemed to move on their own accord to keep up with his thoughts.

With his thumb he rubbed the inside of his other fingers, his other hand caught underneath the pillow on which his head lay, but I was sure, because I knew him by know, had that other hand been free he would be fidgeting with his hands relentless.

I waited, said nothing, just studied his face, his eyes, and held my warm smile to give him all the time he needed.

“It hurts,” he said with a small voice. “It always does.”

I didn’t understand why he said that, what he meant with that.

In that same soft voice, no longer able to hide it, he told me he didn't want to be touched cause it physically hurt him. The scars didn’t hurt anymore, the skin was healed, but the ghost of all those memories, of all that pain, that got activated the moment someone lay a hand on him. The ghost of what once was. 

_ Phantom pain _ .

Still, I couldn’t grasp at the concept. It was only later that I had come to understand what the deeper meaning of his words had been.

It had been the anger from his brother that had made me understand - had shown me the truth.

Loki was mischievous, something about him that I loved so much but that didn’t always sit well with others, especially Thor.

One day they got in an argument, I don’t know over what or how it had happened, but alas, here stood I watching the two Gods bicker. It was Thor who heaved his arm, ready to punch Loki because the Thunderer couldn't settle the argument with words.

I witnessed how Loki struggled under his brother’s grip at first, trying to defy him, pushing back but relenting just as quickly as his brother proved stronger.

Again, it was in Loki’s eyes that told me all I needed to know.

He looked at his brother, fully surrendering to the possibility that Thor would carry out his threat, his fist still raised in the air aimed for Loki. A surrender, acceptance, knowledge of what was about to come - what had been done to him so many times. But I also saw the briefest of hints of fear, of ‘not wanting’, and bracing himself for what was about to come.

_ It hurts. It always does. _

Those words finally made sense. Because every time Loki tried to say something, tried opened up and bared his feelings, he was met with physical assault.

Yet, that revelation had only been one side of the coin. A very cruel and twisted coin...

It had taken me months before I was allowed to touch him; skin-to-skin contact.

My hand ever so softly caressing his arm had been the first thing he had allowed for. Small steps, a brush of my fingers on his cheek, his hand intertwining with mine for seconds, a brush of the lips, a hug, a kiss. In my mind it had taken forever and the patience I had with him was remarkable. And with those small touches had come words.

His words.

Every now and then he lowered his walls a little bit, letting me in and telling small things about himself, about his past.

Until one evening he told me how he had mastered to cast his first illusion.

He donned it as if it wasn’t anything special, but I knew better, for I saw in his eyes that at that time it had meant so much to him. It still meant a lot to him.

“They must’ve been so proud of you,” I mused but I was met by his silence. I looked up at him at the lack of a response and immediately saw that I had been wrong. Again.

I reached out for him as one normally does, a hand to take the other, but like so many times he shied away.

“Frigga was,” he finally answered, but as he extended that answer he looked down as if someone had beaten him with a stick. “Everyone else…”

He let the extent of his answer hang in the air, though I needn’t any further explanation.

“What did they say?” I asked with a wavering voice, afraid to ask the question.

I saw his hands ball into fists, raw anger crossing his face before it died away again. “It doesn’t matter.”

This… This had been the other side of the coin. That twisted side.

Because no matter what he did to prove his worth, no matter what he did, nobody approved of it.

No-one except one…

Many weeks later he had told me that his efforts had been met with nothing else than harsh words, jests, mockery. He had all taken it in with a smile, faced every brunt, like he did as he recited their words.

I understood then that all his life, no matter what he said, did, showed or didn’t do, none of it was ever enough and it was  _ always _ met with violence - be it physical or be it with words.

It had taken me a full year to puzzle the pieces together, to have him open up and to have me touch him.

It had taken me a full year to breach his barriers and every so slightly break through his walls.

It had taken me a full year to gain his trust.

It had taken me a full year to understand just how touch starved he was.

But once he had given in, once he had allowed me in, allowed me to touch him and knowing he wouldn’t get hurt, that I wouldn’t hurt him - only then did the dam break. 

Out came a roaring, hissing and clawing God that could not be sustated and tried to make up for all the lost years.

 

**The End**

**Author's Note:**

> I thrive on comments <3  
> [Follow me on Tumblr](https://starscreamloki.tumblr.com/)


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